Jason Cong, UCLAs Volgenau Professor for Engineering Excellence, was one of five UCLA faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nations most prestigious honorary societies.

Cong is a distinguished professor of computer science and of electrical and computer engineering whose research interests include electronic design automation, customized computing for machine learning and big-data applications, quantum computing, and highly scalable algorithms. He directs UCLAs Center for Domain-Specific Computing and leads the VLSI Architecture, Synthesis and Technology lab.

The academy serves as an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions and perspectives to address significant challenges, with the aim of producing independent and pragmatic studies that inform national and global policy and benefit the public.

New members were elected for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity and courage required to reach new heights, said David Oxtoby, the academys president. We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the academys work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.

More here:

UCLA Computer Scientist Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences - UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Newsroom

State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada

Zip Code

Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe

Read the original:

Belhaven University joins AWS Academy to equip students with in-demand cloud computing skills - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected University of Florida computer science professor and National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI) laureate Juan E. Gilbert, Ph.D. as a 2024 Academy member. The Academy, founded in 1780 by John Adams and John Hancock, elects leaders from all disciplines that work together to solve the problems that our nation faces and believes in cultivating a membership of innovators across all fields of arts and sciences.

We honor these artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors for their accomplishments and for the curiosity, creativity, and courage required to reach new heights, said David Oxtoby, president of the Academy. We invite these exceptional individuals to join in the Academys work to address serious challenges and advance the common good.

Gilbert joins a long list of influential members such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and more. His work toward pioneering a voting system that is accessible, reliable, and secure for everyone falls in line with these leaders' ideals.

At the University of Florida, we want the brightest minds tackling the hardest challenges, and thats exactly what Dr. Gilbert does, said UF President Ben Sasse. We are proud of his work and thrilled to celebrate this recognition.

Gilberts research in innovative voting technologies embodies some of the current focuses of the Academy, which are democracy, justice, science, and technology. Gilbert is joined by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Inc., George Clooney, and 247 talented leaders and innovators as a 2024 elected member.

We're excited to continue recognizing Dr. Gilbert's achievements as he persists in tackling the challenges of safeguarding democracy, said Forrest Masters, Ph.D., interim dean of UF's Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. His enduring commitment in this field is forging the way forward and has shown that others are acknowledging the results his research is generating, particularly in a societal climate where transparency is crucial.

Gilbert and his Ph.D. students in his Computing for Social Good lab work daily on providing solutions to issues faced by the American public. These solutions range from innovative and accessible voting technologies with Prime III open-source voting software to deescalating tensions in routine traffic stops through video chat with Virtual Traffic Stop.

I am truly honored and humbled by this tremendous recognition of the work we do to change the world. The Academy recognizes the top people in our field, and to be named as one of them is such a huge honor, said Gilbert, who is also the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor & Chair of the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. The work that is done in the Academy for our nation has had impact for centuries. I am so grateful for this recognition, and I am looking forward to contributing to the Academy.

Drew Brown April 25, 2024

Read more:

UF engineering professor elected to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences - University of Florida

After she graduated with a computer science degree from a state university in Nigeria late last year, Oyinda Olatunji was confident shed land a job with a local data science company by March. She had been through four rounds of interviews and thought the company would soon make her an offer.

The company, however, decided to go with another candidate who had experience working on artificial intelligence. Olatunji had studied topics like data science and machine learning in college, but the course did not include any practical, real-world examples of how AI works. A data mining course that I did at university was all theory and I just dont have the right skills that recruitment companies look for, Olatunji told Rest of World. As a result, job hunting has grown increasingly difficult. The 23-year-old said she has missed out on several other job opportunities due to a lack of practical experience in new technologies.

Several other African tech graduates have faced similar challenges.

More than 100 African universities offer courses related to AI, including data science and machine learning. But recruitment consultants and academics told Rest of World that graduates from these courses are largely unemployable because the programs are not up-to-date with the industrys requirements. Several startups have stepped up to bridge this gap: They give young African tech graduates practical experience in AI by organizing projects and competitions where they can win cash prizes. These companies, including Zindi in South Africa, DSNai and ChipLab in Nigeria, and ALX in Kenya, have helped thousands of students find jobs.

Africas higher learning institutions have struggled to design curricula that align with the ever-evolving technology landscape, making it difficult for graduates to have the right AI skills, Abdul Moosa, chief technology officer at cybersecurity firm Cyberport Africa, told Rest of World. Private AI startups have emerged to assist graduates in acquiring relevant, practical, tailor-made AI skills and are collaborating with companies to provide internships. Those with such skills have huge success [in the job market].

In the first two months of 2024, over 100,000 students enrolled in programs by ALX, a Kenya-based e-learning platform that offers courses related to data science and software engineering. The company, founded in 2015, started offering AI courses in 2018. Nearly 85% of South African students who took ALXs courses have found relevant jobs, Bavesh Sooka, the companys general manager in South Africa, told Rest of World.

Zindi, a 6-year-old company, has seen nearly 73,000 data scientists use its platform, where it hosts hackathons and boot camps to train graduates and match them with potential employers, CEO Celina Lee told Rest of World. Zindi is backed by investors like AI firm InstaDeep and investment firm Founders Factory Africa it has helped over 100 engineers find jobs with Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

We came up with a model to challenge the notion that data-related solutions could only be found outside of Africa, Lee said. The idea was to develop African talent so that the continent could solve data-related problems without having to look outside of Africa for solutions.

Lawrence Moruye, who has a degree in mathematical sciences from Senegal, signed up for Zindi in September 2018. He wanted to learn programming skills that his school did not teach. Participating in hackathons on Zindi helped him get there.

The hackathons on Zindi taught me how to apply theory to solving real data-related problems and to find solutions something that we never learned at varsity, Moruye told Rest of World. His experience earned him scholarships from Meta and Google to pursue a masters degree in machine learning. He now works as a data scientist at African e-commerce major Jumia.

"Africa is not prepared to reach its full AI potential because we do not have enough talent."

The training provided by startups like Zindi is critical at a time when several African countries are dealing with high levels of unemployment, according to Abdul-Khaaliq Mohammed, an engineering professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Even after finishing a data science degree, graduates are finding that they are not experts in machine learning and AI, and for this, they require training and upskilling, Mohammed told Rest of World. New players in AI and machine learning education are quicker to respond to the new trends, and by upskilling graduates, they increase their chances of being employed in the face of an unemployment crisis.

The South African Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Innovation, which is responsible for overseeing the quality of university education in the country, did not respond to Rest of Worlds request for comment.

There is an acute shortage of AI-related talent in Africa, and governments across the continent need to step in to find a solution, according to Pipeloluwa Olayiwola, an engineering professor at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria.

Africa is not prepared to reach its full AI potential because we do not have enough talent, Olayiwola told Rest of World. The few startups available may not have what it takes to train enough professionals, he said. The best way is for African governments to invest in university AI programs. This, coupled with private startups, will help build an adequate number of AI professionals.

Read more:

Africas e-learning platforms are training students in AI - Rest of World

For the past few years, Harvard has publicly been ramping up its investment in quantum science research across the University.

In 2021, the University announced one of the first Ph.D. programs in Quantum Science and Engineering. The following year, it announced a research partnership with Amazon Web Services focused on quantum networking. Months later, in March 2023, Physics professor Mikhail Lukin whose research is focused on quantum science received a University Professorship, the highest faculty rank at the University and one of the most prestigious recognitions Harvard awards.

At the heart of Harvards rapidly burgeoning quantum research complex is the Harvard Quantum Initiative, which launched six years ago and which is at the center of Harvards expansion of research into the field.

The HQI, led by Lukin, Evelyn L. Hu, a professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, and Physics professor John M. Doyle, describes itself as a community of researchers with an intense interest in advancing the science and engineering of quantum systems and their applications on its website.

We felt a new organization was needed to properly focus resources on an efficient way to launch an effective education and research program in this new intellectual area, while facilitating translation and interaction with industry, Hu wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson on behalf of HQI.

Now, six years after the founding of HQI, Harvards quantum research has expanded dramatically, bringing with it strong new industry partnerships, cutting edge research, and even helped consolidate funding from the Department of Defense and the federal government.

When it was first founded in 2018, the HQI was a formalization of existing collaborations within the Physics department.

The reason why this even exists was that there was quite a bit of collaboration and talking to each other before, said Susanne F. Yelin, a professor of Physics in residence.

Since then, quantum researchers at Harvard have seen an increase in funding and thus a growth in the research groups, something Yelin said was really nice.

How to pay my students, it's just not my main concern anymore, and this is really nice, she said. I started with a group of something like two, three people here at Harvard, and I think right now I have about 20.

We are really lucky that there are a lot of people who are so exciting and willing to, as donors, pour a lot of money into this, she added, pointing to the construction of the HQIs new building at 60 Oxford Street, which is scheduled to be completed this spring.

Formalizing the collaboration also increases visibility of the institutes work, according to Yelin.

It also puts us on the map in the sense of Hello, we are here, we are working on quantum, she said.

Liu Mengke, a postdoc at HQI, said the creation of the HQI has benefited postdocs like her. During the annual HQI symposium, professors and postdocs come together to discuss their work, which Liu said is an opportunity for a good exposure to other PIs.

Liu said the symposium is also an opportunity for students and postdocs to get some advice from those older generations.

The HQI has also provides other opportunities for researchers to interact with experts in the field, including through a quantum information seminar series organized by Anurag Anshu, a Computer Science professor at the institute.

Indranil Halder, a postdoctoral fellow at HQI, said the featured experts are much more accessible through the seminars.

Still, Liu said there are improvements the HQI can make to better serve students.

HQI is already a good platform for us, but I think theres a lot more it can do, she said. Having a good mix or mingle together between the students from different backgrounds, maybe coffee hours, she added.

Harvard has long received federal funding for its quantum research, including from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the Department of Defenses research branch. DARPA has coordinated research across universities with its Optimization with Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices, or ONISQ, program.

The ONISQ program was born out of the idea that noisy qubits, whose usefulness was believed to be limited to fundamental studies, could extend beyond to impact applications of quantum processors.

Mukund Vengalattore, the ONISQ program manager, said DARPA works towards forging a community where scientists work together collaboratively to advance achievement.

Usually the impossible happens much faster than you think it can, Vengalattore said.

In 2020, a research team led by Lukin the University Professor and HQI co-director and including collaborators from outside Harvard received a grant that would end up totaling nearly $9.5 million dollars from DARPA for work on quantum bits, the basic unit of information in quantum computing.

In classical computingalso known as traditional computingthe basic unit of information is a binary bit. It can represent zero or onetwo stateswhereas a qubit can represent any amount of states.

Last December, nearly four years later, Lukins team created the first quantum circuit with logical quantum bits an advancement toward fault-tolerant quantum computing and a significant step in reducing the computational errors which quantum computing is prone to.

According to math and theoretical science professor Arthur M. Jaffe, the work at HQI focused on quantum computing is the product of experts from several different fields working together.

Just as when biology and chemistry came together some years ago to merge into biochemistry, another merging is taking place. Physics, mathematics, and computer science are ripe to converge with the birth of new quantum mathematics which one might call quantum computer science, Jaffe wrote in an emailed statement.

Still, there are difficulties with collaborating across fields and bridging the gap between theoretical and experimental quantum science.

Liu, the postdoc, said that she is an experimentalist and while she wants to collaborate with researchers from different backgrounds, there often are challenges in communication.

Sometimes its a little hard to find a common platform so we understand each other's language, but we chat with them a lot, Liu said.We got a lot of data and we want them to help us understand, she added.

Despite the challenges, there are efforts to bridge that gap through class requirements. Liu said one solution to this is asking experimental students to take some theory classes, and theory students to take some experimental classes.

Beyond research, though, HQI also focuses on both working with industry partners and helping professors spin off their own research into private companies something that researchers say is helpful to expanding research capabilities.

In her emailed statement, Hu, the HQI co-director, wrote that we believe that translation of the knowledge into real-world applications is also very important, and its best done by bridging the cutting-edge research & education done in academic labs with leading industry players.

While Amazon is perhaps HQIs most prominent industry partner, the initiative is also working with other companies, including QuEra Computing a company Lukin co-founded that commercializes quantum computers from the research conducted at Harvard and MIT labs.

Vladan Vuleti, one of QuEras co-founders and a MIT professor, said industry partnerships like QuEra are important because they provide stability to researchers who otherwise rely on graduate students.

We might need better engineering than graduate students can provide, who stay a finite time, Vuleti said. Once quantum computing becomes feasible at a larger scale, then at some point, it probably wont be possible to be done in university labs anymore and would require dedicated people and permanent staff.

QuEra CEO Alexander Keesling also stressed the importance of having industry professionals.

Unlike a research lab that has a small number of people that are hyper focused on pushing the boundaries of understanding, here we have a mixture of physicists, engineers of different types, software engineers, electrical engineers, HE SAID

QuEra is working to expand its industry and scientific partnerships. According to Keesling, QuEra is working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab a federally funded lab at the University of California Berkeley , BMW, and academics working on machine learning.

But Yan Qi Huan, an HQI graduate fellow and current doctoral student, said while the investment into quantum research is important, people in the field should be careful about overhyping quantum science developments.

I think at the same time amongst some people, there's a fear of overhyping certain companies or certain releases over exaggerating the potential of quantum technologies like quantum computing, Yan said.

Vengalattore, the DARPA program manager, also emphasized the need for caution in assessing progress in the field.

We dont want to go around declaring victory in a premature manner, but victory can take many forms, Vengalattore said.

In the future, Vuleti sees academic and industry working in tandem to advance quantum computing.

I see kind of a parallel effort between something that is we take what we know, and we make it bigger and more reliable. he said. At the universities, the research goes on to find better systems, better ways of making quantum gates and reliable hardware.

As researchers and industry experts look to the future of quantum computing, Keesling emphasized the enormous progress in the quantum computing industry.

This is an incredibly exciting time for the industry, for quantum computing, he said. I can tell you that when I started my Ph.D., let alone my undergraduate, the quantum computing industry did not really exist.

See the original post here:

How Harvard Came to the Cutting Edge of Quantum Research | News - Harvard Crimson